Inquiry-based staff meetings (that people actually love)
Creating a culture of inquiry requires ‘walking the talk,’ especially in staff meetings. How can you create teacher support systems, build empathy, challenge assumptions and reflect - while at the same time offering teachers practical routines they can use in their own classrooms?
Consider these experiences as you close out the school year (though they work well at any time). Each experience is designed to build reflection and questioning skills and will provide some much-needed closure to a challenging school year. They can also be adapted with a little ingenuity for classrooms of all ages and subjects - and used on a regular basis (just switch out the prompts or add a twist). The key here is letting people know the why behind these exercises before jumping in. For more exercises, check out all 50 of them in our book Experience Inquiry. Please let us know how it goes in the Comments section below.
I. Strengthen Peer Support Systems: Five-Finger Letters
Try this deceptively simple and powerful team-building activity to get your staff actually hugging and smiling again. Use this structure to reconnect staff with one another and to reflect on the school year.
• Ask everyone to trace their hand onto a blank piece of paper.
• Their name goes into the palm of their hand and then each finger has a prompt for them to answer onto each finger. Let them know in advance that others will be reading what they wrote.
• Ask them to fold their papers in half and then collect them. Shuffle them up, fan them out like a deck of cards and then have each person choose another’s paper. I like to say “the paper chooses you,” like a tarot reading.
Using the the clues from the five fingers, they then write their this person a personalized letter (I give them about 15 minutes). In these letters, teachers can share what they have in common and how they might be able to support one another. The most important part of the letter is to send words of encouragement - and to communicate that they are heard, seen and respected.
• Then, when the letters have been written; the great reveal! This is my favorite part and it never ceases to amaze me how much adults really love doing this. Ask teachers to hand-deliver their support letters to each other - and don’t be shocked when you see tears, hugs and high fives.
II. Build Empathy and Deep Listening Skills: Back-to-Back Listening
This powerful exercise comes from my colleague, Maggie Chumbley (thank you, Maggie)! The purpose of this experience is to build empathy and perspective-taking skills.
• Ask everyone to find a partner (ideally someone they don’t know well) and stand back-to-back, shoulders touching.
• Play a short piece of music and ask everyone to close their eyes (or look down) and as they listen. Ask that they observe the sensations the feel; images, colors, emotions that come up for them . Some of my favorites pieces to play include: La Valse de Amelie, La Llorona (Coco), Papaoutai (Stromae).
• After the music ends, ask partners to turn around and share their personal experience while listening to the music. You may hear things like: “I pictured horses running through fields until that one part of the music that changed them into multi-colored carousel horses…”, ”I counted a 2/4 beat…”, or “Hearing the crash cymbal reminded me of playing air guitar in my basement…” Encourage each person to share for at least two minutes. This means that the other person may need to ask questions to draw out more information, like “Tell me how you felt.” or “What happened next?” or “What did you see as you listened?”
• Have partners go back-to-back again and listen to the same piece of music now from the other person’s perspective. Debrief the experience as a group and ask how teachers might adapt this for their classrooms.
Photo credit: Edutopia (Summit Prep)
III. Strengthen Relationships: Who Were Your Teachers?
Take a trip down memory road. Ask everyone to recall the teachers in their own life…yes, all of them (and those who were homeschooled can take a coffee break)! Set a timer for just 10 minutes. If they cannot remember a name, suggest they write down whatever they remember about that person or year.
You can do many creative things at this point: ask them to identify the teacher who had the greatest impact on their life so far (positive and negative - though I like to focus on the positive). Offer them time to talk in small groups: Who were you at that time in your life What was it about that teacher that made them so memorable? How have these teachers influenced your own teaching? What might your own students remember about you in 20 years?
Click here for a template.
IV. To Push Thinking and Challenge Assumptions: Provocative Statements Continuum
Come up with 5-7 statements that are provocative (i.e. they may seem reasonable at first but when interrogated further tend to bring up a host of questions and other perspectives). Ask teachers to indicate their level of agreement / disagreement with each (on a continuum of 1-10) and then ask everyone in small groups to discuss: Which statement do you most / least agree with? Which statements had the greatest / least consensus in your group? After listening to others, did you change your mind?
Below are a few examples to get the juices flowing. Click here for a template to create your own statements (famous quotes are also great to use; check out Teach Different to see how they use quotes to spark deep discussions).
• Some cultures are better than others.
• Standardized tests should be abolished.
• Some people are naturally better at math.
• You don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.
V. To Develop Question-Asking Skills: Question Formulation Technique
This practice comes from The Right Question Institute. It’s a simple exercise to generate as many questions as possible while observing an image or text. After generating a list of questions, you can do all sorts of things like ask people to label them as Closed (convergent) or Open (divergent), change Closed to Open and Open to Closed, or indicate the questions they are most authentically curious about. I usually pair people up for the generating part (putting a full 10 minutes on the clock), then bring people together in larger groups to share. For step-by-step instructions (and rules), please go straight to the source.
How many questions can you generate from this photo in 10 minutes?
Reenergize your teachers, model great inquiry and promote SEL routines. Inquiry Partners is offering 10% off their popular School-wide SEL/Inquiry Bundle, which includes an asynchronous course + interactive book designed for teachers of all grades and subjects to work together through. Try before you buy!